Democrat Cliff Johnson says he will stand up for “vulnerable” Mississippians and bring “Mississippi values” to Washington, D.C., if voters elect him to serve Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District, he said in an announcement Thursday.
He is a civil rights attorney and the director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Johnson hopes to oust incumbent Republican U.S. House Rep. Trent Kelly, who has served in the U.S. House since 2015, in the 2026 midterm elections.
At the MacArthur Justice Center, Johnson supervises litigation and instructs students who participate in the MacArthur Justice Clinic. His work includes efforts to reform the criminal legal system, where he aims to improve addiction and mental health services and lift people out of chronic poverty, the press release says.
“As Mississippians, we were taught that we are measured by how we treat those around us who
are struggling and need help,” Johnson said in a press release. “But in Washington, too many career politicians have forgotten those values and callously bury Mississippi families under a heaping pile of oppressive policies that make life harder rather than easier.”
Johnson Prosecuted Health-Care Fraud, Works for Criminal Justice Reform
During the Clinton administration, Cliff Johnson served as an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he prosecuted health-care fraud cases in Mississippi’s federal courts. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services honored him with the Inspector General’s Integrity Award for his work as an assistant U.S. attorney.
He also practiced law at private Mississippi law firms, including Butler Snow and at Pigott & Johnson.
In 2023, Johnson and other lawyers challenged a state law that would have allowed the Mississippi Supreme Court’s chief justice to appoint unelected judges to majority-Black Hinds County’s circuit courts and that created a state-run municipal court system. The lawyers represented three Jackson residents who were plaintiffs in the case.
He called the law, passed under House Bill 1020, “radical legislation that unconstitutionally packs the Hinds County court.”
The Mississippi Supreme Court agreed that the special circuit court appointments were unconstitutional, but allowed the state-run municipal court.
As a civil-rights attorney, the campaign press release says that Johnson has worked to shutter debtors’ prisons that illegally jailed poor people who could not pay misdemeanor fines, including in Corinth, Jackson and Moss Point. It notes that he also helped end Mississippi’s unconstitutional practice of jailing Mississippians for months and years without an attorney.
“We are taught that we are judged by how we treat the least of these, but we strip health care from the poor to fund tax cuts for the wealthy,” Johnson said in a promotional campaign video on Wednesday. “We’re taught to promote justice, but we lock up more of our people than any nation, disproportionately the poor and people of color and refuse to fund reentry and substance abuse programs.”
Johnson lives in the rural Springdale community of Lafayette County with his wife and pets. He graduated from Mississippi College and Columbia University’s law school.
Kelvin Buck and Montravious Hall are also running as Democrats to represent Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District.
Kelly Is a Staunch Trump Supporter
Rep. Trent Kelly has not officially announced his reelection campaign, but his campaign finance reports from 2025 show he has raised $282,757.68 for the 2026 reelection campaign. He is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, and the congressman voted in favor of the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, House Resolution 1.
The law cuts $5 trillion in taxes, cuts the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, adds work requirements for Medicaid enrollment that could cut millions off the program, and increases funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and Trump’s deportation efforts.
“I proudly voted for the One Big, Beautiful Bill, a win for the American people that delivers on President Trump’s promises to secure the border, cut taxes and strengthen our national defense,” Kelly posted on social media on July 3.
Editor’s note: Cliff Johnson has donated to the Mississippi Free Press in the past. Donations do not affect our editorial decisions.